The Apocalypse

Schmidt Number: S-5917

On-line since: 31st December, 2016

Before we go any further in our study of the Apocalypse we must
add one more method to read it properly, which however is taken
more from outside. Then the main thing is to apply what we read
in the Apocalypse to our present time. In order to do this, we
must first look at the spiritual foundations from which this
Apocalypse arose. But I don't mean that one should do this by
trying to explain a book through one's times in a trivial
historical sense. This is not really applicable to writings
like the Apocalypse which are conceived out of the spiritual
world in the way I described. Nevertheless, it was created in
the way that it could be created in its time in accordance with
the spiritual conditions — not in accordance with
external historical conditions, but in accordance with
spiritual conditions. Let's take a look at this time.

Let's connect this time of the first Christian centuries with
general world evolution in a spiritual way. The year 333 A.D.
is an important year if we look at the evolution which occurs
behind outer events. This year 333 is the point in time in
which the ego shot into the intellectual or mind soul, which
developed between the year 747 before the Mystery of Golgotha
and the beginning of the age of the consciousness soul in the
15th century. This year 333 stands right in the middle. The
intellectual and mind soul developed during this epoch and it
played an important role in the development of the Greek
mentality. It continued to work until the age of the
consciousness soul began. The Mystery of Golgotha took place in
this age of the development of the intellectual soul or hearty
feelings soul.

Now
we must realize that this shooting in of the ego into the
intellectual and mind soul is something which is very
important. One has to tell oneself that one understands things
with the intellectual and feeling soul. But this bursting in of
the ego which occurred around the year 333 nevertheless shook
up the humanity which comes into consideration for the
reception of spiritual influences; it really shook them up
right down into the depths of their soul. Anyone who wants to
participate in the spiritual life and to work along spiritual
lines must see the outer facts of historical developments on
their spiritual backgrounds.

Which major events must be looked at in the light of this
ego-entry into man's soul at the time when it was occurring
behind the illusions of outer events, as it were? It was here
that the whole relation off divine beings to men started
tó become uncertain, contested and misunderstood.

At
this point vie have the significant dispute between Arius and
Athanasius. Men started to become unsure of how they should
think about the relation of the gods to the world and to human
beings, etc., at the time when a somewhat unconscious question
about how the divine ego lives in human nature arose from a
lack of clarity which was present when the ego shot into the
soul. The two views of Arius and Athanasius were sharply
opposed to each other, and we see that Äthanasius' view
gained the upper hand in western Europe whereas the view of
Arius gradually lost favor.

Let's look at this contrast from a spiritual standpoint,
because it is important that we do so if we really want to
understand the inner meaning and the inner spirit of something
like the Apocalypse. On the one hand Arius sees that man is
climbing higher and higher, and that he's supposed to get ever
closer to the divine, and on the other hand he sees the divine
being. In addition to these great world principles he must also
understand the Mystery of Golgotha and the nature of Christ. He
wants to answer the question: How is the human or the divine
nature contained in Christ? Should one look upon the Christ as
a really divine being or not? And he basically answered this
question with a no. He basically took the position that became
the general position of a large part of the European
population, namely, he put up a boundary between man and God,
that is, he didn't really want to admit that God dwells in man,
so he placed an abyss between God and man.

We
must go back to the time of the first Christian developments in
an unbiased way, which basically had nothing in common with the
things that happened later when Christianity became decadent
within Roman Catholicism. And this is why we should realize
that it became necessary for the further evolution of mankind
to decide the whole question in the way that Athanasius does,
who sees a directly divine being in the Christ and who sees a
really divine sun-spirit in Christ, even though this later
receded into the background because of a disinclination to
think of the Christ in a cosmological way. But it lay in
Athanasius' whole mentality to look upon the Christ as a god
who is really equal to the Father God.

This view continued to work on, although it lost its entire
evolutionary thrust at the eighth council in Constantinople in
869. which basically cancelled the doctrine of this first
council in Nicaea, because it declared that trichotomy is
heretical. Therewith things began to degenerate. For this
definitely cut off any possibility of growth into spirituality
for the catholic church in later centuries.

It
was definitely that shock which occurred within when the ego
broke into the intellectual and feeling soul which colored this
outer event and which gives the latter its real inner meaning.
And if we continue to look at things in a historical way we,
have to tell ourselves: After this year 333 came those times
which broke away from the ancient Roman culture, especially in
Europe. We see that the old Roman culture could basically not
absorb Christianity, because öf what it had become. It is
a marvelous picture which unrolls before us if we direct our
gaze at this year 333.

This year also indicates the period in which Romanism was moved
away from Rome and further over to the east. The Roman emperor
who wants to appropriate Christianity flees from Rome and goes
further east. We shouldn't look so much at the detrimental
things and bad side-effects which arose in the council of
Constantinople, — we should pay more attention to the
fact that when Christianity hit Rome one had to flee from west
to east. This is tremendously significant. When such an event
is looked at from the spiritual world its importance is so
obvious that the harmful effects which were caused by
Byzantinism were relatively minor.

One
would like to say that it is of tremendous importance that when
Christianity or its outer form was touched by Romanism, it had
to flee. Of course something then rises from the ground —
from which Constantine fled towards the east with Christianity
which was prepared for a long time in Roman territory, but
which forces Christianity into outer, worldly forms when it
matures. One should just think how significant it is that the
Apocalypticer's prophetic eye sees that Christianity begins to
assume ancient Roman forms at the moment when Rome decides to
make Christianity its official religion. This is really the
thing which becomes manifest.

On
the one hand we have the spiritual dispute between Arius and
Athanasius. On the other hand, we have ancient Rome which
converts to Christianity but moves towards the east, while the
form which remains behind in Rome takes on the shape of the
Roman state and becomes the continuation of ancient Rome, even
in its outer activities.

Now
let's ignore certain things for a while for which we will have
to give a deeper spiritual explanation later, and let's look at
some historical things. The Apocalypticer's perception of this
historical element is great and tremendous. He doesn't express
it clearly, but he has it in his feelings and it's in the way
his writing is composed, that is, he points out that the growth
of what occurs in mankind and outside in history took 333 years
from the Mystery of Golgotha, and that a strange, illusory
development of Christianity then sets in. Christian Romanism is
uprooted and goes over to the east, and Roman Christianity
adapts itself completely to Roman forms. This is the soil which
prepares something which again takes 333 years or until the
year 666.

If
you place what we said yesterday about the things which the
Apocalypticer and other people who were inspired by the ancient
mysteries gained from a contemplation of numbers before your
soul, you will have to tell yourselves: this Apocalypticer
looks at the additional 333 years during which Christianity has
a deceptive outer appearance, so that it must develop in murky
fogs in two directions; — it is driven eastward and it
preserves the old element in the west which is like an
Ahrimanic thing.

Something which had remained from the non-Christian, ancient
Romanism prepares itself in the womb of earth evolution. What
does this nonChristian Romanism consist of?

Now
if we look into the mysteries we find that trichotomy or the
holy number three had a profound significance in all of the
greatest and most advanced ones. Let's take a look at what this
meaning was. One thought about how a human being is born in the
physical stream of heredity, approximately in the way that
esoteric Hebraic teachings conceive of this. One imagined how
this human being brings characteristics and capacities with him
through heredity. One described the life of a human being as
something which proceeds in a straight line and in which
nothing important enters except what is oriented by hereditary
impulses. The fathers in the ancient mysteries said: You
originate from the physical forces of your parents, and the
spiritual impulses of your physical parents are also at work in
you. And these ideas continued to be taught in Hebraic
esotericism and by the proponents of other esoteric
doctrines.

However other people added something to this. In the mysteries
which must be called the most advanced ones, one spoke of how
the man who bears hereditary impulses and develops accordingly
can also take in another impulse during his physical existence
between birth and death, an impulse through which he lifts
himself out of hereditary conditions, so that his soul finds
its way out of them, namely, the Son impulse or Christ impulse.
And one said: The impulses of heredity are in man and they
constitute his straight line evolution between birth and death.
They are from the Father, the Father who underlies everything.
The impulses of the Son do not enter into hereditary forces,
they must be taken up into the soul and elaborated by the soul;
they must be able to expand the soul to such an extent that it
can free itself from bodily and hereditary forces. They enter
the freedom of man, in the way that one understood freedom in
those times; they go into the freedom of the soul, where the
latter is free from hereditary forces. They are the ones which
permit man to be psychically reborn. They are the impulses
which enable man to control himself during the life which is
given him by the Father. And so one saw the father-man in all
of these mysteries, the man who is the son of the Father and
the brother of Christ and who controls himself. He gains
control over that part of him which is free from the body in a
certain respect, and he must bear a new realm in him which
knows nothing about nature and which is a different order than
nature is the realm of the Spirit.

If
one were to talk about the Father God, not in the external,
materialistic way in which one does this today but more like
they do in Hebraic doctrine, one would be justified in speaking
of effects of nature which are also spiritual effects, for
spiritual activities are present in all activities of nature.
The natural science which arose a while back and which is
active today is merely a one-sided science of the Father. The
science of the Son or the Christ is added to this; this is
connected with the way man takes hold of himself and with the
way man receives an impulse which he can only take in through
the soul, and not through hereditary forces. The way he works
his way into this is chaotic at first, without the activity and
the power of laws. This activity is brought into him by the
Spirit, so that according to the ancient mysteries we basically
have two kingdoms the kingdom of nature or the kingdom of the
Father, and the kingdom of the Spirit, and man is carried out
of the kingdom of nature and into the kingdom of the Spirit by
the Son or Christ.

If
we become aware that such views were still present in the
Apocalypticer and in the souls of all the men of his time, it
will enable us to look into his prophetic soul, which could
survey the future in such broad strokes, in order to look at
the way he looked at what poured over the Christianity which
had become a semblance of itself in two directions around the
year 666.

Here his prophetic eye fell upon that doctrine which had
already arisen in the east in 666, and which goes back to that
Muhammedanian mystery culture which knows nothing about the
Son. This Islamic mystery culture doesn't know anything about
the world structure to which I referred; it doesn't know about
the two kingdoms, the realm of the Father and the realm of the
Spirit; it only knows one rigid thing; only the Father exists
for it, there is only one God. And everything else is his
prophet — mainly Muhammed. This point of view makes Islam
the polar opposite of Christianity. This viewpoint leads to the
will to eliminate all freedom for all times to come, to the
will for determinism, and this cannot be otherwise if one only
thinks of the world in connection with the Father God.

However, the Apocalypticer feels that man cannot find himself
like that. Man cannot be permeated by the Christ like that; he
can't grasp his humanity if he only grasps this ancient
teaching about the Father. The outer human form becomes Maya
for a world conception which is so strongly closed off within;
for man becomes man by taking hold of himself, by making Christ
alive in himself and through the fact that he can fit himself
into the spiritual order of things and into the realm of the
spirit which is entirely free of nature. Thereby he becomes a
man; but he doesn't become a man if he falls back into the view
which only reckons with the Father God.

The
Apocalypticer is basically saying that after the ego broke in
mankind is in danger of going astray in the permeation of this
ego which is pressing into humanity from 333 on, — that
humanity is in danger of being confused in its permeation of
this ego with the Son God or Christ. What threatens to keep man
at the animal stage rises up after a period of time which is
just as long as the first period after the Mystery of Golgotha,
— 666 is the number of the beast.

The
Apocalypticer had a decisive, inner vision of what threatens
men. Christianity was made into a semblance of itself in two
directions, or it would be better to say that it became
obscured by fog. The year 666 marks the time of this inundation
which threatens him. It is that significant year in the
spiritual world when what exists in Arabism is introduced
everywhere. He points to: this year 666 very clearly. People
who can read in an apocalyptic way understand this quite well.
For he foresaw the effect that the thing which was breaking in
would have, and he called the number 666, the number of the
beast.

Thus he basically anticipates everything which follows in an
apocalyptic way. What follows is the streaming of Arabism
towards Europe, whereupon Christianity becomes permeated by a
teaching; which could only make men fail to see the humanity
within them; where the Father dogma is converted into
naturalism; whereby the latest view on evolution arose, which
says that one must explain man by just following the sequence
of animals down to the human being.

Wasn't the beast whose number is 666 still rising in Darwinism,
where man couldn't comprehend that he is a human being but
could only look upon himself as a beast? Don't we see these
Ahrimanic resistances which are working against the Son God
working further in the impregnation of Christianity with a
materialistic form of the Father dogma? Isn't this still
working into our time? As I have often pointed out, just take
something out of recent theological developments such as
Harnack's book about the nature of Christianity. One can put
“Father” wherever he has the word Christ, for it is
only a teaching about God and not a concrete Christ teaching.
It is a denial of Christ's teaching, for a general Father God
is put in the place of Christ; and no attempt is made to arrive
at anything which is connected with Christology. The
Apocalypticer sees this coming.

And
when he sees this approaching it is already basically connected
with something else which weighs upon his soul, namely, the
difficulties with what one calls the transubstantiation for
lack of a better word, although it doesn't really cover the
spiritual elements which are involved. Now this difficulty, my
dear friends you know yourselves how your souls struggled with
the difficulties which are connected with transubstantiation
when this Christian renewal was inaugurated; and many of you
are still struggling with the difficulties which are involved
in the understanding of this transubstantiation. Just think of
how many hours we spent over there in that room where the
Goetheanum fire started on discussions about
transubstantiation; for the whole question of Son and Father is
contained in transubstantiation. And one could say that some of
that oppression which mankind felt in the dispute between
Arianism and Athanasianism is also present in the dispute about
transubstantiation which arose in the Middle Ages.

In
fact, transubstantiation can only have a meaning if it is based
on a real spiritual understanding of a Christology which tells
one how Christ is connected with humanity and the earth.
However, due to the breaking in of Arianism, the
transubstantiation theory was always in danger of getting too
close to the Father dogma, and it made people think that the
metamorphosis of the substances which come into consideration
for transubstantiation must be placed in the series of nature
processes, that is, in the spiritual part of nature
processes.

And
all the questions which are connected with communion arise
because one really says to oneself: How can what takes place in
transubstantiation be grasped so that one can unite it with
what one has in the way of a Father evolution of the world or
of a working of the spirit through the laws of nature. This is
not a matter of miracles here; this is mainly a matter of
sacramentalism, which is not at all connected with the trivial
question about miracles which gave people so much trouble in
the 19th and already in the 18th century. The important thing
here is to realize that one has the order of the Father and the
order of the Spirit in the world. In between stands the Son,
who raises the kingdom of nature to the kingdom of the spirit
within the human sphere. If we place this before our soul,
transubstantiation appears to us as something which we
shouldn't look for in the wide order of nature, although it is
nevertheless equipped with a reality, with a really spiritual
reality, which one can speak of just as well as one can speak
about a natural order. However, the Apocalypticer foresaw how
difficult it would be for men to say that there is another
order, a spiritual order besides the order of nature, since 666
plays into human evolution with such force.

One
could say that Anthroposophy comes to the rescue here in a very
modern way, and sheds light on precisely such a thing as
transubstantiation. For Anthroposophy can help us to make the
way man lives through repeated earth lives alive in us again,
and also the way man has the impulses which lie in the
hereditary line and which are connected with heredity, and with
the Father force when he stands in the outer physical world
with his actions. There man stands. There are the hereditary
forces in the way he lives his life. There is a great deal in
these hereditary forces which is connected with human destiny
— if we only look at it in an external way — and
which occurs through the Father forces that have been secreted
into nature. The results of the previous earth life
continuously play into man when he acts, so that as he acts he
brings up the spirit into the physical corporeality which he
has acquired in his present existence. The result of the
previous earth life works in him; there are forces underlying
this.

Imagine some human action. It can be looked at from two sides;
from the point of view of the human being who is born from a
mother, father, grandfather, grandmother, etc. But now look at
the action from the other aspect. Forces are working in it
which are an aftereffect of previous earth-lives. We have a
completely different order here. This is why it can't be
understood by any natural science, that is, by any Father
science.

But
it's possible to look at two things here which are essentially
the same, even though they are accidentally different. On the
one hand we see how karma or destiny as the result of previous
earth lives develops out of the human being; we have a
lawfulness there which is not a nature lawfulness at all,
although it exists; and we look at the altar and at the way
that transubstantiation takes place as a spiritual reality and
in a way which is also not outwardly visible in the physical
substances. The same laws hold sway in them. We can bring two
things together here: the way that karma works and the way that
transubstantiation takes place. Whoever understands the one can
understand the other.

This is one of the mysteries which you must grasp in your new
priesthood. This is one of the mysteries under whose light this
priestly community must develop itself out of Anthroposophy. It
is one of the inner reasons for this.

This also points to the tremendous difficulty which existed for
an understanding of transubstantiation, because one couldn't
understand the kind of a lawfulness which is present in human
karma and which underlies transubstantiation. The ego which
acquires freedom in physical life, which entered in 333 which
wrapped Christianity in a fog in two directions, and made it
flee towards the east on the one hand and into the ancient
Romanism which could never be entirely Christian on the other,
this year 333 and the entrance of the ego threw a shadow or a
darkness over the connections between successive earth lives,
and it had to throw it, because this lies within the evolution
of mankind. What would have happened if this ego had not
entered? Julian the Apostate would have won, although from the
viewpoint of the ancient mysteries one should really call him
the Confessor and not the Apostate. Of course the following is
only a nebulous hypothesis, but it indicates what could have
happened; if Julian had introduced teachings from the old
mysteries, humanity might have received the ego which came in
from spiritual worlds in such a way that one could have also
understood the karma teaching with it. Mankind had to climb
over higher walls in order to arrive at an understanding of
Christianity, and not arrive at it as easily as they would have
if Julian the Apostate had been victorious.

Thus humanity was exposed to the rising of the beast and to the
consequences and results of 666. As I said, we will go into
more of the inner details in the next few days. This is how the
karma teaching was withheld from mankind and this is the way
the transubstantiation dogma was placed into mankind, so that
there is nothing analogous to it in men's world conceptions,
for the closest analog for an understanding of the
transubstantiation teaching is an understanding of the karma
teaching. The force with which the destiny of a human being, is
created in a next life out of successive lives is no force of
nature, is no Father force, — it is a force of the Spirit
which is mediated by the Son. It is the same force which is at
work at the altar when the holy bread and wine are
transformed.

And
we must inscribe this deep into our souls; If we can understand
this rightly, if we can lift our soul and mind and hearty
feelings to the kind of spiritual impulses which work írom
one earth life to the next, we also understand what happens at
the altar in transubstantiation. For when someone looks at the
holy bread and wine with his ordinary understanding and doesn't
see what's happening at all, it's no different than when
someone with a materialistic mind doesn't see anything in the
destiny of a human being besides what proceeds from the forces
of his muscles and his blood — I'm speaking of the
spiritual forces of the muscles and blood and from hereditary
statistics.

These are the connections which one must understand in order to
arrive at a true understanding of the Apocalypse and the
Apocalypticer. These connections lead directly into the
present, from the impulses which one can read quite clearly in
the Apocalypse.